Students Told to Worship the Sun?

The government is actually allowing a religion to be imposed on public school students, and using our tax dollars to do it.

We’ve heard so many times from secular groups like the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) or the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) that students in science classrooms in public schools can’t be taught about creation, as that would be teaching religion in government-funded schools. And yet, such secular groups do support students being taught religion in the public schools. In fact, the government is actually allowing a religion to be imposed on public school students, and using our tax dollars to do it.

Imagine if public school students in their science classes were encouraged to worship the sun. And yet this is happening! But how do they get away with it? Well, they just call worshipping the sun “science,” and then claim they can teach this “science” in the public schools!

You see, the following statement is allowed to be made (and is being made in a number of instances) to public school science students:

Our ancestors worshipped the sun. They were far from foolish. It makes good sense to revere the sun and stars because we are their children. The silicon in the rocks, the oxygen in the air, the carbon in our DNA, the iron in our skyscrapers, the silver in our jewelry—were all made in stars, billions of years ago. Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are stardust.1

This statement was made by Neil deGrasse Tyson in the new Cosmos series. Evolutionists are encouraging teachers to use this series in public school classrooms. For instance, on the education section of About.com, a writer claiming to be an evolution expert states the following:

The Fox television series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson is an excellent way for students at the high school, and even the middle school, level to supplement their learning on various science topics. With episodes that cover almost all of the major disciplines in science, teachers are able to use these shows along with their curriculum to make the topics more accessible and even exciting for learners of all levels.2

I want you to hear the quote in the new Cosmos series as Neil deGrasse Tyson gives it. Watch this video clip from episode eight, called “Sisters of the Sun,” beginning around the 54 minute mark (counting commercials):

Incidentally, Neil deGrasse Tyson is not the first disciple of naturalism in recent times to suggest a distinctly religious message in stardust. Tyson’s statement echoes one made by prominent atheist Lawrence Krauss (professor at Arizona State University), author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing (2012). Blaspheming the grace of Jesus Christ by casting stardust in the religious role of both “creator” and “savior,” Krauss said the following during a lecture:

You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements—the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution—weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

I would like you to hear Krauss actually say this. It shows he is clearly a religious zealot as he proclaims his atheistic religion and blasphemes our Savior:

They not only wrongly claim that biblical Christianity is anti-science but also claim that evolutionary science satisfies a spiritual need.

Like Krauss, Tyson, and the producers of the new Cosmos series openly draw the battle lines between biblical Christianity and their own substitute religion of evolution. They not only wrongly claim that biblical Christianity is anti-science but also claim that evolutionary science satisfies a spiritual need. Tyson speaks in the series not just about observational science overlaid heavily with his evolutionary claims but also extols the spiritual satisfaction he derives from his evolutionary beliefs. For instance, in this same episode (“Sisters of the Sun”) Tyson says, “Accepting our kinship with all life on earth is not only solid science; it’s, in my view, also a soaring spiritual experience.”

Yet even before the series premiered, the producers made its religious position clear by defining scientific literacy as belief in evolution and blaming the exposure of students to creationism for rampant so-called “scientific illiteracy.”

On March 11, 2014, AiG writer/researcher Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell wrote this at the beginning of a series of reviews on this program she did for the Answers in Genesis website:

Rebooting the 1980 Carl Sagan series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, the new 13-part series has a similar goal: to encourage science literacy. Executive producer Seth MacFarlane says, “I think that there is a hunger for science and knowing about science and understanding of science that hasn’t really been fed in the past two decades. We’ve had a resurgence of creationism and intelligent design quote-unquote theory. There’s been a real vacuum when it comes to science education. The nice thing about this show is that I think that it does what the original ‘Cosmos’ did and presents it in such a flashy, entertaining way that, as Carl Sagan put it in 1980, even people who have no interest in science will watch just because it’s a spectacle.” MacFarlane blames scientific illiteracy on the “rise of schools questioning evolution” and hopes the series will put an end to the sort of thinking that would question evolution so that scientific literacy can march forward. Ironically, despite the claim that this series is designed to advance science literacy, by adopting Sagan’s theme—“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be”—the producers have hoisted a most unscientific flag above this “ship of the imagination.”3

So it’s okay to teach children they really should be worshipping the sun, as Neil deGrasse Tyson states, but it’s not okay to teach them the observational science that confirms the account of the history of the universe and Earth as given in the Bible. Why aren’t Christians up in arms about this?

We need to call naturalism what it is—atheism.

I think it’s about time Christians woke up and understood that even though there are Christian missionaries in the public school system (and they need our prayers), by and large these schools are actually churches of atheism. Millions of students are being taught that all life and the universe arose by natural processes—by naturalism. But we need to call naturalism what it is—atheism. Regardless of where parents send their children to be educated (and that is their decision before the Lord), it does need to be understood that as these young people are sent to the public schools for around seven hours a day, and they are largely being indoctrinated in an anti-God religion. If one is not for Christ, then one is against Christ—there is no neutral position. If the education system is not for Christ, it is against Christ. If the textbooks are not for Christ, they are against Christ! If the teachers aren’t for Christ, they are against Christ!

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. (Luke 11:23)

Around 90% of kids from church homes attend public schools—and most are really not surviving the system. Certainly there are some Christian students (and they are the exception, not the rule) who can stand on God’s Word, defend the faith and witness to the other students. But as I said, they are the exception! Most students from church homes are adversely affected by the system.

God’s Word certainly gives us the principles we need to understand so that we can teach and train our children.

How many parents are equipping their children with apologetics to defend the faith anyway?

And how many parents are equipping their children with apologetics to defend the faith anyway? Would it make a difference in how parents view education and how they train their children if they if started thinking this way: “Well, I’m sending my kids off to the church of atheism for seven hours today to be placed under the teaching of many who are priests of atheism for five days this week. I hope their one hour at church on the weekend enables them to survive.”

Now there are parents who choose to homeschool or send their students to Christian school—and such decisions are, as I said, between those parents and the Lord. There are many complicated situations in this fallen world. But the point I want to make is this: If parents truly understood what was going on, maybe so many students would not come through such a system and end up, in essence, worshipping the sun.

We need to be diligent and realize that every child conceived in a mother’s womb is a being who will live forever and ever in heaven or hell. What a reminder of the awesome responsibility parents have to do their best to teach their children to worship the Son—to put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Creator Redeemer.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:5–9)